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IF YOU ARE READING THIS CALL THE POLICE

Seriously, stop reading and call them now

By Gregory Andrew PricePublished 3 years ago 9 min read
3
IF YOU ARE READING THIS CALL THE POLICE
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

If you are still reading this, hopefully you are already dialing 911.

Tell them where you are, and that a large man with long white hair and a red windbreaker is trying to kill you.

Get to a public, preferably crowded area if possible.

If you see the man in the red windbreaker—keep moving. Don't run. Just keep walking and act like you didn't notice him, and maybe try to find a cop at the station or something.

This isn't a joke. It's really important that you do this now. The rest of what I'm about to write here is for the detectives or whatever law enforcement entity is seeing it.

Two days ago, close to midnight, I drove my girlfriend to the corner store to buy sour gummy worms. I had offered to just go and get the candy for her, but she said that she wanted to pick them out because I never get the right one.

I was sitting in the car, listening to podcasts, because I didn't want to go inside, and this guy jumps in the backseat of my car, talking real loud.

At first, I thought I was getting jacked, but the guy was laughing, and that's when I realized he was on the phone. I also noticed he was dressed real nice, like he just came from a cocktail party or something.

I was still looking at this guy in shock, and he was still talking on the phone about someone getting their money soon, until after what seemed like a full minute of this, he finally addressed me:

"Hey, pal, what's the hold up? Can we get a move on, please?"

"What—" I started.

"Um, who the hell are you, and what are you doing?" My girlfriend, in her pajamas, holding three big bags of neon sugar-coated gelatin.

"What the hell is this?" The guy in the suit was getting mad now.

Just then, the car next to us honked its horn.

We all looked over, and the driver waved at us, then smiled and shrugged. This only added to my confusion, until I saw that his car was the exact same make, model and color as mine.

The guy even looked like me a little.

Suit Guy got out, slammed the door, and got into the back of the other car. Didn't apologize or anything.

"That was weird," my girlfriend said. "What a jerk."

It wasn't until the next morning, when I woke up to go to work, that I found the duffle bag.

I won't bore you with all the details of the moral dilemma... I eventually opened the bag, obviously.

Inside the bag were four manilla envelopes, each containing neat stacks of bills—$5,000 a pop—and a little black book that barely had anything written in it. On the first page, in small, concise letters was the word "BOSS" above what appeared to be an overseas phone number. The next page read "YVETTE" with what looked like a local number with our same area code. The rest of the pages were mostly blank—a few here and there had numbers and letters randomly on them. It didn't make any sense.

We considered trying to return it, but we didn't have Suit Guy's name or any identifying info.

Even if we tried to call the car service, we didn't know what app he was using. There are so many of them now.

My first thought was to keep the cash, burn the bag with the book and the envelopes in it, and call it a day. I'm not exactly poor, but let's just say $20,000 would definitely improve my current financial status. I needed the money. But I've also seen a lot of movies and I knew that this money more than likely meant trouble, and not the kind of trouble that I wanted anything to do with. So after a long night of thinking on it and arguing with my better half, I decided that the next morning I would call the two numbers listed in the book and arrange for Suit Guy's belongings to be returned to him. That was last night. I slept like a baby.

I didn't wanna call from our phone—for obvious reasons—so I drove back up to the corner store this morning and disinfected the payphone. I soon discovered that calling an overseas phone number from a payphone exceeded my budget of loose change from the cupholder in my car. I don't know why I didn't think of that in advance, but I didn't. Sorry BOSS.

I dialed YVETTE, and it rang and rang and rang...

Eventually, I gave up. Maybe I should've just thrown the bag over a bridge. I don't know. I was thinking about what my next move was gonna be and was about to get back in my car when I heard the phone ringing. I ran back and picked it up.

"Yvette?" I was panting, my voice high pitched. I probably sounded like a maniac. There was no answer, but I could hear faint breathing and decided to go on. "I have the money and a bag that belongs to a dark-haired guy who got in my car the other night by mistake. I just want to return it. We didn't take any of it. I hope he's not mad or anything. I honestly didn't even find the bag until la—"

"He's dead."

"I—" my throat cracked and I coughed. "Excuse me, what?"

"He's dead, and so are you, if you don't get rid of ALL of it and get out of town and never come back—do you hear me?"

I couldn't think of anything to say, but something didn't seem right. This was some very serious and ominous stuff for what seemed to be not such a serious amount of money. "Is this a joke? I mean, 20k ain't peanuts, but it's also—"

"They are already at your apartment. You need to get rid of the bag and everything in it and get out of the state, then keep moving. You won't be safe anymore. If anyone else was at your apartment, don't go back for them. They already have them now, and if you attempt to contact the police they will be killed. I believe you and your story, but it doesn't matter. And it isn't about the money. Please take this advice: leave now."

She hung up.

I laughed nervously to myself on the short drive home. This had to be some kind of elaborate prank, I thought. I dialed her number three times on the way but she never answered.

My brain stopped trying to rationalize things when I arrived back at the apartment to find the door busted open and all of our things thrown around, completely wrecked. They took my girlfriend... or killed her. I don't know which... I started to dial 911, then put my phone back in my pocket. I didn't see any blood, which I hope was a good sign. I'm hoping this with everything I've got—as I sit here on this train frantically scrawling this out on the blank pages in the black book you are reading now.

Seven or eight rows back sits the man in the red windbreaker. I don't know how long he's been following me, but I sure as heck noticed him tailing me as I drove around aimlessly for about an hour this morning, tears streaming down my face, trying to think of what to do next. I was taking turns at random, so it was easy to wonder what this car was doing making all of these crazy turns along with me. I knew I had to go somewhere public, and so I began to formulate my plan and headed to the train station. I bought my ticket and found my seat, keeping tabs on my new friend discreetly. I don't think he knows he's been seen, but maybe he does.

Before I started to write this, I examined the money, the bag, and the book, and I couldn't find any kind of GPS tracker or anything. So maybe the cash itself is bugged? That doesn't make sense—but how else would they have found out where we lived?

But enough about me—let's talk about you for a sec. Hopefully, by some wild chance, you're a detective who is really good at your job. If so, you can probably find out who I am, and eventually help me and maybe even find my girlfriend. I hope. And look, I know that's a long shot, but I'd like to see you do better with very little time and a very limited travel budget. If you are NOT a detective, or some other law enforcement agent, I hope, for your sake, that you are also not a random person who found a bag with twenty thousand dollars in it on the train and decided to ignore the warning (which I wrote in very large all-caps at the front of this book and on the front of each manilla envelope) because if you are, and you didn't call the police or go to a public area, you might be in some serious trouble at this point. It's probably not too late to call the cops, but who knows? Regardless, even if you are not a cop and you are still reading this, my long-winded narrative has served its purpose: buying me some time.

If you are still reading this, and you are law enforcement—please note that I was able to make a quick stop at the luggage store in the station right near the tickets and purchase a similar (although much poorer quality) black bag to the one you are now holding without my new friend noticing. At least, I'm pretty sure. Like 80% sure. I used my debit card to purchase it, so maybe you can use that info to ID me. My plan is to stuff this bag and all its contents under the seat when I'm sure Windbreaker isn't looking, and get off at the next stop, buy another ticket for a long trip on a hopefully crowded train, and keep going on that way until I can finally shake him or until whatever hidden GPS pings and they realize I don't have the money anymore.

Or maybe I can use one of those car apps to throw them off my trail. There are so many of them now.

fiction
3

About the Creator

Gregory Andrew Price

it's wonderful to be here

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